Monroe woman threatened to poison her husband two years before he died, father testifies

Tianle Li next to her attorney, Steven Altman, at a court hearing in 2011Patti Sapone/The Star Ledger

NEW BRUNSWICK — A Monroe Township woman on trial for her husband’s murder threatened in 2009 to poison him if he divorced her, his father told a jury in New Brunswick today.

The threat came less than two years before Xiaoye Wang died from thallium poisoning allegedly administered by his wife, Tianle Li, on the eve of their divorce becoming final.

Ming Wang, who lives in China, testified how he and his wife came to the United States in December 2008 to spend a year with Wang and Li, who was expecting the couple’s first child in January 2009, but left after only four months because of the tension between the couple and because Li and his wife argued frequently.

Through an interpreter, Wang said “Tianle Li did not show politeness.”

Wang, a retired middle school teacher, kept a journal of his experiences and time in the United States and recorded several episodes of arguing and fighting between his son and Li as well as Li and her mother-in-law.

Wang said that on April 12, 2009, an argument between Li and his wife led to police being called to the home. The police were called a second time in the afternoon after an argument between Li and her husband in which the older man said Li told Xiaoye Wang that, “I was so sick from bearing your child and now you want a divorce. I will not let you go so easily. I will poison you and burn the house down.”

The elder Wang testified that Li said it after brandishing a knife or scissors and threatening her husband with them.

He said police arrived at the home, but didn’t come in after Xiaoye Wang told the officers “it’s (the fight) over.”

After Wang and his wife left for home seven days later, they never saw their son again.

Crying, Wang said he learned of his son’s death from his daughter after she received a call from Li’s mother, who lives in Beijing.

During the trial, now in its second week before Superior Court Judge Michael Toto, a laboratory technician for the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota testified that Xiaoye Wang had so much thallium in his system in January 2011 that it was “off the charts.”

Wang and Li were supposed to finalize their divorce on Jan. 14, 2011, but, instead, Wang took himself to the University Medical Center in Princeton with violent stomach pains. He told doctors that his wife poisoned him and they tested him for heavy metals, but did not test for thallium until days later. The test results came back positive on Jan. 25, but Wang was in a coma and died the next day.

Thallium is a highly toxic heavy metal that is tasteless, odorless and deadly in small amounts, according to officials.

Li, 44, was a research chemist at Bristol Myers Squibb and obtained the thallium through work, authorities said.

Monroe police have also testified how they were called to the home several times in December 2010 by both Li and Wang, each of whom claimed the other was poisoning them.

Li denies she killed her husband, who left the Monroe Township house in spring 2010 and filed for divorce from Li in July 2010. He moved back into the home in the fall of 2010 to help with his son’s care, officials said.